Obsessive-Compulsive South American Trip Preparation

[moto-treks]

Those fees may only be necessary if you arrive by air as is the case for the $160 charged by the Chileans in Santiago. Not sure about the Argentinian fee.

[GastonUSAChile]

Originally Posted by moto-treks

Those fees may only be necessary if you arrive by air as is the case for the $160 charged by the Chileans in Santiago. Not sure about the Argentinian fee.

Chile is $130 for the new comers arriving at airports (only US , Australian and various nationalities). it last for the life of the passport for consecutive entries. Border crossings no charge.
Argentina is a beefy $160 , same rules.
Bolivia is $130 too, and those guys are charging even at border crossings.
Brazil is a madness of taxes , including visa request to U.S. citizens.

[Rockaway]

Great breakfast and even better people. The TRAP members put on a terrific meeting each month in the Beaverton area.

I noticed you have chosen the Shoei multitrack helmet for your trip. Is there any specific reason you went with a Shoei rather than another brand of modular helmet?

Greg

[porkandcorn]

Originally Posted by Rockaway

I noticed you have chosen the Shoei multitrack helmet for your trip. Is there any specific reason you went with a Shoei rather than another brand of modular helmet?

Greg

i chose the Shoei Multitec for it's build quality, and because they offered the helmet in 'school bus' yellow. i'm very happy with it. other less expensive modulars seem to have mechanisms that are a bit more flimsy.

i did attempt to replace it with the Shoei Neotec, which adds the in-helmet visor, plus a removable/washable liner. however, the Neotec was noticeably louder at speeds and it drove me crazy. that could be because my Multitec is a Large, and the Neotec was an X-Large. (too big of a helmet can make it loud). so i sold that one to some happy discount buyer.

note: i had to use the back side of a spoon to make my Large fit my forehead without leaving indentations in my skin for hours after i took my helmet off. but now it fits great. so, anyway, i stuck with spoon-modified Multitec.

[Rockaway]

Originally Posted by porkandcorn

i chose the Shoei Multitec for it's build quality, and because they offered the helmet in 'school bus' yellow. i'm very happy with it. other less expensive modulars seem to have mechanisms that are a bit more flimsy.

i did attempt to replace it with the Shoei Neotec, which adds the in-helmet visor, plus a removable/washable liner. however, the Neotec was noticeably louder at speeds and it drove me crazy. that could be because my Multitec is a Large, and the Neotec was an X-Large. (too big of a helmet can make it loud). so i sold that one to some happy discount buyer.

note: i had to use the back side of a spoon to make my Large fit my forehead without leaving indentations in my skin for hours after i took my helmet off. but now it fits great. so, anyway, i stuck with spoon-modified Multitec.

I am in need of a new helmet. I have an older Shoei that fits me wonderfully. My wife just purchased a Schuberth and has had a great experience with it. I really like the built in sun glass feature. I also have experienced a little wind noise with my Tiger before I put on the taller adjustable windshield. The taller wind shield really does a nice job cutting down on the wind noise. My wife drives the Tiger 800 (non-XC) which really doesn't need a taller shield because of the different riding position. I installed the adjustable feature and that has really done the trick.

I am excited to hear about your trip. I hope to get a chance to talk to you at the TRAP X-Mas party on the 15th at Classic Moto. Have a good week!!!

Greg

[porkandcorn]

so myself and 4 other motorcyclist (and 1 SUV owner) are sharing a 40ft. sea freight container from long beach, california to san antonio, chile. we have great timing, as we got caught up in the long beach port strike that was thankfully just resolved yesterday. considering the circumstances, we didn't fair too badly - we had to move the container onto another vessel departing a week later to insure against further delays. so now the bikes are expected to arrive in valpariso, chile on approx. january 14th.

i already have my ticket to santiago, chile for january 5th, and i looked into changing the flight today to the 12th to accommodate the new container arrival date. $1017.00 to change the flight!!! so, i'm going to look for an airbnb.com apartment in santiago for a week and hang out. i hear it's a really cool city.

[GastonUSAChile]

This is what is call a professional job. Good luck duck!!!!!

Find the duck , first pet on board in a container
Family picture, Porkandcorn, Fritz, Bear, Coach, Jeff and Henry, and Peter with his QX4




Weird gear, well, everybody with its own madness

Chile and beyond beginning January 14th

[porkandcorn]

found a nice english - spanish motorcycle glossary today here on adv. i'm not well-versed enough in spanish yet to know how good it is, but it seems pretty good. and now it's on my little blog so i won't forget where it is!

[Rockaway]

That is a terrific idea.....

Greg

[porkandcorn]

firstly, i will say that in the year of planning, research, and to-do lists - the task of learning and installing a good south american map set onto my garmin zumo 660 was the most frustrating, feared, procrastinated, and unpleasant of anything else i have done or attempted to do.

garmin customer tech support, not surprisingly, is not in the business of giving 110% when it comes to you loading 3rd party maps that cost $00.00 on their devices. and basecamp, garmin's apple/mac friendly desktop user-interface, is far from being plug n' play. so that makes it fun too.

the open source mapping from garmin.openstreetmap.nl is excellent. this is not garmin. from what i can tell, it's a dutch programmer who is doing it for donations. so donate after you realize how awesome these maps are like i did. awesome, almost to the point of wondering how garmin is going to adjust their business model to adapt to the inevitability of this content being better than their own. garmin's south american maps are useless by almost all accounts online. and the alternative to garmin.openstreetmap.nl means loading maps by country, often on PC/windows only platforms that suck the life out of your soul.

in this post, i'm going to give a summary of what one needs to do in order to load 3rd party open source maps from garmin.openstreetmap.nl into a garmin zumo 660. it may be different with other garmin devices, as they are not all designed/programmed alike. thank you to jeff smith, who spent 3 hours with me on video conference this morning helping me figure all this out. jeff - you are my hero. it shouldn't be this hard to do this, but it was.

and let's not forget to thank garmin for making it so freaking nearly impossible that it takes: 4 garmin applications, 2 open source applications, two pretty smart guys about 20 email exchanges and a 3-hour video chat, and one really freaking awesome dutch geek-god to make these open source maps and applications available so you can install them. great job!

1. install latest zumo firmware and latest version of basecamp.
2. download and install the additional garmin programs: garmin map install & garmin map manager, garmin POI loader (more about POI loader in a subsequent post.)
3. go to www.javawa.nl, download and install JaVaWa GMTK, JaVaWa device manager from this nice dutch guy. (possibly the same guy as the open street project??? not sure.)
4. go to garmin.openstreetmap.nl and choose the country map you would like to download - and download right there. (or enable "manual tile selection" to create your own regional/continental map - i made a map for all of southamerica)
5. if you make a custom map, garmin.openstreetmap.nl will ask for you email and send you a download link for the large maps that you create.
6. once at the garmin.openstreetmap.nl server, you will see many file types to choose from, download to your desktop osm_generic_macosx.zip (this is the map installer for base camp for mac users).
7. double-click on this file to run the install. it will open garmin map install, say yes to install prompts.
8. while garmin map manager is open, you can delete any old map versions or duplicates that might be there. make sure it's an old one though! or just don't do anything. never mind. you are on your own on this one.
9. now the new map will show in garmin map manager and is installed in basecamp as "OSM generic routable", the default file name.
10. using javawa GMTK, rename to whatever you would like (in my case, South America OSM). this will also keep you from having complications from duplicate file names, as all files coming from garmin.openstreetmap.nl will be called "OSM generic routable"...
11. control click on the application to open first time (mac security requires you to do this - will open normal subsequent launches).
12. select "OSM generic routable" in window, click "extra" in top menu, select "change map name and ID" in drop down.
13. write your own name (i used South America OSM) in "name on computer", "name on device", and "folder name" (folder name should still have .gmap at the end). keep family ID number the same, but if you download more OSM maps, increase the number by +1 each time to keep them all different in the bowels of your computer.) Click "modify" to complete renaming.
14. open basecamp. go to top level menu/maps, and select your new map (South America OSM for me). congratulations.
15. now, stop celebrating and let's get the map that is now installed in basecamp copied over to your garmin device. plug your garmin into your computer with the USB cable. launch garmin map install. select your device in the drop down menu (it's likely the only one there), and click "continue".
16. in the next window, select your new map (South America OSM) in the drop down. you will also see your factory installed North America NT map set.
17. once selected in the drop down, you must now select ALL the map segments (funny little rectangles and squares) from your new map by (click-dragging) your cursor from the very upper left corner of the map window to the very lower right corner of the window. when you let go, all those "segments" will have turned black meaning they are selected. now click "send maps" and "confirm" on next screen. it will now send from your computer (via map install) to your garmin device. my whole map of the entire continent of south america took about 10 minutes.
18. now open javawa device manager with your garmin still connected to your computer. again, control click on the application to open first time to satisfy apple security. select your new map in the list. go up to the top left menu and click "visible in BC", then "yes" on the next screen to confirm. you see the little basecamp icon added to the new maps icons in the list. this will allow your new map to be visible in the garmin's map folder drop down when it's connected to your computer and basecamp is running. for some reason that i don't care to describe, you have to do this in order to see it. let's just say it's magic.
19. now finally, "eject" your garmin device from the top base camp "file" menu. now you can quit ALL the applications - you are done with that crap. start up your garmin device. go into the menu system to make sure your map is there: tools/settings/map/map info... and you should see it in the list with your other maps, with a green check as "selected". have several cocktails at this point, or a cigarette if you smoke. (try e-cigs - they are better for you.)
20. plug your garmin into your computer one more time. start basecamp. it will take a while to read your new map, should be less than a minute. this is just to make sure that basecamp recognizes the new map as installed on the garmin.
21. go into your new map in basecamp (with or without the garmin connected), and create a simple 3 or 4 point route in a random exotic city's downtown. make sure that it routes through the streets, and not in a straight line, to make sure the routing data is all good too.
22. start planning your routes through exotic and exciting locations around the world that only a couple years ago where blind spots to this kind of data.
23. do something else. (i like the number 23 and it has special significance for me. so this is a 23-part tutorial now.)

[porkandcorn]

Santiago 1
Av. Las Condes, 6901
2.886.36.79
Lunes a Viernes de 10 a 19hrs, sábados 10 a 15hrs
S33°24'334" W70°33'578"

Santiago 2
Av. Vitacura 9488 (Llaveria)
2.894.54.30
Lunes a Viernes de 10 a 19hrs, sábados 10 a 15hrs
S33°22'848" W70°32'677"

Buenos Aires
Av. Libertador 520
Vicente Lopez - CP 1638
5411.4795.3780/6524
5411.4796.0838/5263
info@triumph-motorcycles.com.ar
S34°35'325" W58°22'865"

Lima, Peru
SCP Groupo Socopur
Avenida Separadora Industrial 651
Urbanicacio Los Alamos, Ate, Lima, Peru
Contact: Jesus Paredes Contreras
ktm.ate@grouposcp.com
www.socopur.com
S12°04'19" W76°58'54"

Bogotá – D.C.
Dirección: Calle 127 No. 7C - 09, Bogotá – D.C.
GPS Ubicación:
Latitud: 4°42'9.81"N (N)
Longitud: 74° 1'53.64"O (W)
Teléfono: 0057 (1) 7022099 Ext. 108
rs@triumphcolombia.com
rponce@triumphcolombia.com
Horario de atención: Lunes a Viernes – 9 a.m. a 6 p.m.
Sábados – 9 a.m. a 1 p.m.

Medellín - Antioquia
Dirección: Carrera 36 No. 10B - 28, Medellín – Antioquia
GPS Ubicación:
Latitud: 6° 12'64.6"N (N)
Longitud: 75° 33'92.0"O (W)
Teléfono: 0057 (4) 5813066
ov@triumphcolombia.com
lb@triumphcolombia.com
Horario de atención: Lunes a Viernes – 9 a.m. a 6 p.m.
Sábados – 9 a.m. a 1 p.m.

Saõ Paulo, Brazil
Triumph IMOCX JK2
Av. Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek, 535
CEP: 04543-010
Tel: 11 2040 2433
S23°35'242" W46°40'482"

Saõ Paulo, Brazil
Triumph IMOCX Morumbi
Av. Morumbi, 6849
CEP: 05650-002
Tel: 11 3755 1127
S23°36'475" W46°40'642"

[Cousteau]

I've been reading your preparations for the last few months as I too am going the other direction on a Triumph 800XC - from Guatemala to Rio. It looks from another thread I found that there is a Triumph dealer in Lima. Here is their info:

SCP Grupo Socopur
Avenida Separadora Industrial 651, Urbanicacion Los Alamos, Ate, Lima, Peru
The contact person: Jesus Paredes Contreras, E-Mail: ktm.ate@gruposcp.com - www.socopur.com - GPS: S12°04'19" W76°58'54")

Maybe we'll cross paths as you head north, I start heading south on April Fool's Day 2013 and figure to hit Colombia third week in April or so. I'll be reading as your adventure unfolds.

Safe travels.

Cousteau
2Wheelchronicle.com

[porkandcorn]

Thanks for the data. Added it to my list below, plus calculated the GPS coordinates for the other locations that i was missing. Here's to crossing paths - I should be in columbia about the same time!

[jonz]

Howdy,
Just found your thread. Your preparation and planning are amazing. I won't be taking nearly the stuff you are but after perusing your list, I'm going to check out the Mr. Filter Fuel funnel. O'Reilly Auto parts carries them and supposedly has the F3 in stock. I just need to see if I want to dedicate the space to one.

Henry and I (Jeff) are flying down to Santiago and will arrive EARLY on Feb. 5th. We still haven't decided how we will fill the time waiting for the bikes to arrive. Staying in a big city like Santiago for more than a couple of days is not high on the list of things I want to do. I prefer more outdoorsy stuff so will look into possible hiking/mountain biking locations nearby or maybe head to the coast for some surfing/diving/etc stuff. Do you have any plans for Santiago?

Henry and I are planning to head north as soon as we get the bikes to intercept the Dakar rally on the Chilean coast. Will try to find the specials of at least one and maybe two stages to watch really, really fast guys on motorcycles and in cars/trucks. Then we ride north from there.

[porkandcorn]

hey container-mates! (looking forward to meeting you!)

thanks. the trip prep has been fun, and a good way to kill time waiting to leave. these last couple of weeks are proving rather painful, because i've got nothing to do. i arrive in santiago the morning of the 6th. i rented an apartment in the Providencia neighborhood until the 14th when the bikes arrive to Valparaiso. not sure what i'm going to do. i like exploring cities, but i'm open to just about anything. i too was thinking of a way to incorporate the Dakar Rally into my plan, as it would be a shame to be that close and not see some part of it. but i'm heading south from Valparaiso into patagonia. let keep in touch and try to meet up in santiago sometime after we all arrive. i might get a pre-paid when i get there for the week, and i'll email you my number if i do. otherwise, we can just pick a time and place to meet up.